I wanted to start a conversation on what in my view, a user with no programming skills and a lot of desire to make my home as automated as possible, is the handicap of Home Automation. Things have progressed a lot: advances in technologies are making possible to integrate devices, create automations via scenes or skill or however they are labeled, and more. It is not perfect, a device might work with this hub but no this other, or this hub supports ZigBee and z-wave but not Wi-Fi, you get the idea. But the biggest challenge I see is that Home Automation has not being able to overcome the fact that this is not something John or Jane Doe can say let me go buy a hub and some devices and have my home automated by the end of the day. It is not user friendly, you can all disagree at different levels but Home Automation is not consumer grade. Take me as an example. I had some X10 devices in the early 2000’s them moved to SmartThings. I have watched who knows how many videos, created device handlers, smartapps, updated firmware, bought newer hubs, and in the end with 164 devices I cannot say that I have an automated home. I gifted a hub to my brother and he sent it back to me in less than a week saying that was not for him, too complicated.
Home Automation needs to address these shortcomings. And while industry leaders recognize the need for standardizing, take the Matter effort, backed by the heavyweights, it’s all about having devices “talk” to each other when what is going to make home automation take is to get Home Automation to regular person level.
Home Automation should be as simple as drag and drop for conditioning scenes, rules or complications whatever they want to call it. A person wants to have a light turn on when motion is detected and turn it off five minutes later? A skill or app should be available where the person just selects a few conditions from drop down menus and it’s done. We can argue that all of that is available and possible, and it is, but can your senior relatives or friends do it?
Ezlo provides Integration guarantee (which means if the device is available commercially, we will include it in our system)… Automation Guarantee: You will be able to run any automation you want…
Visualization: Where you will be able to create any dashboard you wish to see all your “Property Tech” (more than home automation).
I have to say, all of that is great but do you think that Ms. Smith will be able to do dashboards? Ezlo is doing a great job with the platform but the learning curve is exactly what I’m referring to with regards to home automation. It is too much for the average Joe. The way ALL home automation systems work makes it fall in the hobby territory. People need to commit to it, not something people are willing to do. Please don’t get me wrong, I love home automation and I like what I have discovered so far with Ezlo but mass adoption will benefit all of us. Vendors will move more products, prices will drop and developers will have more incentives to create.
We are building a ready made templates/themes etc…where a novice person can simply use what is available by default or choose one from the market place without having to build a dashboard…that work is under way…
Predictive, Learning capability of the home automation can only come after the platform is built. But it will come.
Just clarifying, I am not singling out Ezlo, what I have experience in less than a week with my Ezlo Plus hub is really good. Very fast compared to SmartThings, once I get a good grasp of scenes I will replicate all my automations and I look forward to learn a lot with this hub. It is the concept of Home Automation as a whole that needs simplicity. I like the focus on universality but devices can all “talk” to each other but if the average person cannot use it on a daily basis it will continue to be a niche.
I agree about the general experience of home automation industry. At the moment Home Automation is for the “enthusiasts” who can put time in to tinker and learn, not for everyone…
Our intention is to change that by providing a platform
